Love Changes Everything
by Belbrock
Summary: A retelling and expansion of Susan Kay's Phantom. The first chapter elaborates slightly on the end of the novel, while the rest is my own creation.
1. The Kiss

**ERIK**

My demented grief could not be contained in my shattered heart as I insisted she leave with the boy…

My psychotic mania had evaporated with every tender caress of her warm tongue – tentative and reticent at first – which became breathtakingly passionate and infinitely loving as my hands slowly and warily moved to rest on her hips. Her lips – so perfectly plump and sweet! – moved in harmony with the grotesque malformation I call a mouth. For a moment, she pulled away from me and looked into my sunken eyes with an expression I could not name. Her lips were only an inch or two away from mine as fresh tears tumbled down her flushed cheeks. She did not look away from me for those few short moments, and just before she claimed my mouth once again, hers curled into a bittersweet smile. With her soft lips, wandering tongue, and passionate embrace, she seemed to take the shattered pieces of my weary heart and carefully put them back into place.

All thoughts of murder, evil, and malice evaporated as the extraordinary beauty of the moment filled my mind, my heart, and my body. There was no Master but the intense emotion that cannot be contained by a word as simple as "love". She was my teacher, and I accepted her tutelage with both eagerness and apprehension. The kiss could not have lasted more than a minute, but when her mouth left mine, she pressed her face against my decayed cheek, leaving soft kisses along my jaw, and down my neck, until her head rested on my shoulder, and the arm that was caressing the back of my neck joined the other that had wrapped round my waist in a tight embrace. My hands, which I had not dared to move from her hips for fear of disturbing the ethereal bond of the moment, now moved slowly up: one resting on her back, the other, stroking her hair. And there we stood, two people drowning in unspoken emotion, clinging to one another. Our fear was not that we would drown without the other, but rather that by letting go, the tides of fate would pull us apart.

What a fool I had been! What an arrogant, ignorant idiot! I once thought I knew what love was; after I had found Christine, when her voice, beauty and loyal friendship were all I knew of her, I had believed myself in love. I truly believed that my feelings were pure, but they brought nothing but endless pain – pain that I had all too often passed on to the woman I claimed to love. My selfish jealousy had brought me to the point where I was willing to break her heart purely to preserve my own! Now, holding her in my arms, with my face buried in the sweet smell of jasmine lingering in her beautiful hair, I felt such deep shame, and with it, the memory of the boy who was slowly dying in my torture chamber. If he should die, it would undoubtedly damage the woman who had given me everything I have ever wanted in this world.

Although my body screamed in protest, I moved my hands to Christine's slender shoulders and gently pushed her away. For a moment we stared at one another, both in awe, and both heartbroken that this revelation had been discovered so late. I flipped the switch on the wall which slid open the door leading from the torture chamber into the room where Christine and I stood, both shedding silent tears as we communicated with our eyes what we were incapable of enunciating aloud.

It was only when they were gone – when I was certain she was safe – that I allowed my grief to be unleashed. Nadir had followed me into the sitting room, and I told him what had happened. I told him of Christine's fearlessness, her passion, and I told him that she had given me what no other human being on earth had ever had the will or courage to give me. First I wept; choking on my tears as I felt every crack in my heart Christine had attempted to mend burst open to flood my body with a despair I had never thought possible. Dear God, I loved her so! I did not know what love was until that night – not only because of the kiss, but because she saw _me_. She saw a man, and treated me like one. She made me feel human… she made me feel loved.

Once the violent, choking sobs subsided, I was filled with such demented grief at the realisation that I would never, without the shadow of a doubt, see her again. I vaguely remembered making the boy promise to bring her back – to let me see her one last time before the wedding. Of course, I knew perfectly well he would do no such thing. Would I have allowed her to return to a homicidal maniac if I were in his place? Of course not. All I had left of her now was the memory of her face, her voice, and the vague taste of her on my lips. Suddenly, the sight of my underground prison was too much for me to bear. How could I let her stay here with me? How could I lock her away in this necropolis when the very sun radiated from her eyes? My selfishness would have killed her – perhaps not physically, but the burning fire within her would slowly have subsided, until only embers remained.

Dear God, the pain! I could not contain it. Everything that fell within my sight was torn to shreds. Every stick of furniture - from the sofa, to my once-treasured pipe organ. Finally, despite Nadir's protestations, _Don Juan Triumphant_ followed suit, as I ripped the pages one by one and burned the scraps in the fireplace. It was all a lie: Don Juan Triumphant was a testament to hatred, hurt and what I had thought love was, but what had I known? Selfish, lustful possessiveness? I knew now that love was not found in those staves – only the heartache that I perceived as such.

What did any of it matter? I knew I would die without her. I knew my heart would not survive this ordeal. I did not want any part of me left on this earth. I did not want my wickedness remembered. Once my house had been demolished, I approached Christine's room, and I knew I would not be able to destroy what lay beyond the door. Instead, I walked in, closed the door behind me, and lay down on her bed. Still her sweet fragrance graced the bed linen. Within minutes the pillows were drenched, and the sweet smell of her was lost under the stinking morass of my tears.

 ** _CHRISTINE_**

 _Why did he send me away? How could he leave me, when I needed him as much as a human being needs air? Without his voice – as powerful a drug as the morphine Erik used to numb the pain of a lifetime – I was nothing. Without him, I was nothing._

 _He had been cold, detached, aloof the night that he forced my down to the fifth cellar. I struggled but I knew I could never overpower him. I donned the wedding dress as he had commanded, frightened for the first time by the savage rage pulsing through his every word. It was only when he dropped the engagement ring into my hands that I understood – and I knew Raoul would die that night. Raoul… the friend of my childhood… the memory of my father. Even from the moment he proposed, I knew I did not love him in the way a wife should love her husband. Why then did I agree to run with him? Why did I agree to abandon Erik? I did not want to say no to Erik's proposal, but I was too frightened to say yes. My fear had virtually nothing to do with his face – it was his damaged soul that frightened me. He killed without compunction, his wealth had been the product of shameless blackmail and extortion_ , _and the only means of controlling his violently changing moods was by incapacitating himself with a needle._

 _And yet… there was an emotion hidden deep within me which I could not identify – an emotion that was far more complex than anything I could ever feel for Raoul._

 _On that fateful night, despite his raving, I listened to every word he said. I learned more of Erik's past in those few minutes than I had in the six months we had known each other. For the first time, his often-bizarre behaviour and dangerous temper made perfect sense, and though I pitied him, the urge to pull him close and comfort him was almost overwhelming. I had never challenged him directly – certainly not when he was angry! – but seeing Raoul, my childhood friend, locked inside of that torture chamber unlocked some primitive instinct within me. For every curse he reigned down on me I returned in kind. I begged him to punish me instead of Raoul – that I was to blame. I even told him that if he should go through with his insane plan to erase his competition, that I would hate him. It was only after those words that he turned away and spread his hands over the mantelpiece. His mood seemed to have altered abruptly yet again, and I was unsure of how to continue. I asked him earnestly what he wanted. He did not answer me._

 _Suddenly, I saw everything so clearly._

 _He had spoken of his mother – of her hatred – and of the pain he had suffered at the hands of others his entire life. He had never been loved. He had never felt wanted. He had no one. And I was about to flee with Raoul – run away from this man who wanted only to feel what every human being desires most: love._

 _His hands were wandering over the mantelpiece when I walked towards him and placed my hand lightly on his shoulder. He swung around, alarmed, and looked at me with confusion and mild surprise, as though he could not quite believe I was standing there. For a moment we stared at each other. Tears were streaming down my face as I lifted my hand to untie the mask, and let it fall to the floor. The moment his face was exposed, I saw that he, too, was crying. He turned his face away, but I put my hand on his withered cheek, forcing him to look at me, and the moment our flesh touched – the moment I dared to touch his greatest shame – his eyes closed and tears flowed steadily after his sharp intake of breath. He opened his eyes when I said his name, and as he looked at me - his eyes filled with misery - I moved my hand from his face to the back of his neck and pulled him down while I lifted myself on my toes, and allowed my body to rest against his. When our lips met, I heard a stifled sob trapped in his throat. A sigh escaped my own throat as a feeling that can only be likened to being struck by lightning hit me and urged me to deepen the kiss. I had kissed a man before, but never had I felt that intense need to become one with another person. The feeling is so difficult to put into words, so I will use as many as it takes: loving, needing, sensual, erotic, painful. More than anything, I wanted to melt into that kiss and become one with Erik… there was only Erik in those few short moments._

 _I held him tight in my arms, listening to his racing heart and his erratic breathing, punctuated occasionally by broken sobs. He stroked my hair reverently, but said nothing, until finally, he moved his hands to my shoulders and slowly pushed our entwined bodies apart. He leaned over and pushed some mechanism on the wall, which caused one of the mirrored panels to slide open._

 _In those few seconds before Raoul emerged we looked a each other once again, but when Erik began examining Raoul and insisting we marry right away, I tried to protest. He placed a finger on my lips and hushed me, before using that same finger to stroke my cheek lovingly. He requested that Raoul allow me to return in order to deliver a wedding invitation, and Raoul hurriedly agreed, though everyone in the room was well-aware that this would never be allowed to happen. Erik turned to me once more. The expression in his eyes was so utterly crushing that I sobbed out loud. At that, Erik spun around, greeted the Persian he had attempted to kill only a few minutes earlier, and both disappeared through the sitting room door. Raoul took my hand and pulled me in the direction of the boat, while I looked back at the closed door with confusion and hurt._

 _For over a week, Raoul frantically made the arrangements for our wedding, but my heart was elsewhere… No matter how many bouquets my future husband brought me. I was not at peace. My mind thought only of the disastrous mistake I was about to make, and my heart longed for a man who was not my fiancé. It was only when I insisted I deliver the invitation to Erik that Raoul lost his temper. He had brought me a bouquet – as he had every day since we left the house on the lake – and upon seeing me dressed, holding an envelope addressed to Erik, he threw the flowers at the wall, grabbed the invitation, and ripped it to shreds. After warning me that there would be no wedding if I did not come out of my stupor, he left me alone in my apartment._

 _It was then that I made a decision that would change the course of all of our lives..._


	2. The Consummation

_**Thanks for the positive response and likes/follows. Please be aware that this chapter is very graphic. Should you wish to continue reading, be prepared for 50 Shades of Phantom. I warned you. Enjoy ;)**_

 **ERIK**

It has been over a week since the night I sent her away. I had not eaten, despite Nadir's vain attempts to coax sustenance into my withering body. My soul was crushed; I was simply waiting for my heart to finally follow suit. I wanted only for the pain to end. It was only the tiniest flicker of hope that kept me from giving into to the peaceful darkness. Hope… how I despised it! As useless and painful as the memory of the one I could never have.

It was the promise alone she had made me which forced me from the bed to drown my sorrow in the Turkish bath that Christine had bathed in during her imprisonment in this underground hell. I can hardly say why, but my mother's insistence that cleanliness was next to Godliness would not leave me. Of course, Godliness was very far from my reach, but the flicker of light – that damnable, vain hope that she may return – urged me to present myself as a man, and not some filthy animal. At least I would die with a semblance of dignity. Death… I had never feared Him, and I did not fear Him now, but that bloody promise was all that kept Him at bay. A week without food. A week with only my agonising memory of her warm lips closing over mine. A week without the sweet relief of morphine; I could not give in to the temptation of that needle. I deserved to suffer, and in those first three days, my body almost succumbed to the violent agony of withdrawal. And yet… here I am. Still waiting. Still hoping.

I lay on her bed, twirling a tarot card between my fingers – The Lovers, of course – staring at the opposite wall, when the door clicked open. Naturally, I assumed Nadir was once again trying to persuade me to pick my heavy heart up from the floor, where it had been trampled and trod upon too many times to even acknowledge his attempts at keeping me alive. I did not look up, only softly, coldly, bade him to leave me in peace.

"As you wish," said a voice that had haunted both my dreams, and my every waking moment. Was my mind finally giving in to the madness that had been stirring, insidiously waiting for the moment to steal faculties from me? I flung the card down and looked up. It had to be a dream… a hallucination. Surely, the angel that stared at me with those lovely, tortured eyes was not real. I sat up straight, blinked, and yet, she was still there!

"Christine…?" was all I could manage as my heart seemed to leap into my throat. She clearly took this as a sign that I did not want her to leave my sight. She turned to close the door behind her, and as she pushed it shut, I saw the gold ring on her finger, and I fought to keep my grief from betraying me yet again.

"I see the blessed union has already taken place," I said with weak sarcasm, a pathetic attempt to veil the unimaginable pain of knowing that she finally belonged to that damned boy. "In any case, better late than never. No matter, my dear. I would still like the invitation… as a keepsake… you understand. I am sure your husband is impatient to return home." My façade of calm civility was slipping further from my grasp as she turned away from the door to face me. Silently, she walked towards the bed where I was fighting the urge to jump up and close the small distance between us. Still, she was silent as she ran her left hand, adorned with the golden band, over the mahogany frame at the foot of the bed. She did not take her eyes from mine as she walked slowly around the bed towards the trembling wreck that sat before her. I was vaguely aware that she was wearing only a lilac coat over a simple white dress.

A slight, ironic smile curled the luscious lips that I could suddenly taste once more – the only memory I was glad I would never forget.

"This is not Raoul's ring," she said simply. "I found it in the pocket of my dress the night you sent me away."

I could not comprehend what she was implying. I looked at her like a perfect fool, with utter confusion. The faint hope I had harboured these past few days brimmed to the surface as she stood before me, looking down at me, her eyes studying mine for some unknown response. For the second time in my life, she had rendered me utterly speechless.

She sat down beside me on the bed, her eyes never leaving mine, and she once again untied the mask and set it down on the bedside table. She cocked her head to one side as she rested her hand on my chest.

"I have no invitation to give you, Erik, because there will be no wedding."

Finally, the tears that had threatened to betray me from the moment she walked into the room were unleashed as I looked at her in utter disbelief. Then she leaned in and kissed me. There was no hesitation, no uncertainty, only a persistence that both astonished me and awoke the body I was preparing to leave behind in this mortal world with urgent desire.

With a gut-wrenching apprehension, I slowly, cautiously, pulled the lilac coat off her shoulders, and it fell to the floor. Again, she shocked me to my core when she pushed me back onto the pillows and straddled my waist, her tongue insistent as she placed her hands firmly over mine and guided them over her thighs, up her waist, and then she pulled her mouth away as she lifted her arms, allowing me to pull the thin fabric over her head. My eyes travelled over her naked body with breathless wonder.

Was this happening? This could not be real. I felt a moment of terror that if I touched her heated flesh, she would reject me, but that fear vanished altogether when she took my face in her hands and kissed me with an urgent passion that overwhelmed my senses. At that moment my mind ceased to function and instinct overtook my throbbing body. If this was real… If this was truly happening… It must mean that she wanted me! She wanted me…

Her fervent kisses and the soft moans that escaped from deep within her throat made me almost believe that her desire was more than merely a pale comparison of my agonising need to possess every inch of her body. My heart was beating an unsteady, deafening tattoo, pounding in my ears. I ran my hands adoringly over the hardened peaks of her breasts, and caressed her flat, dancer's stomach, until finally, passionately, they moved up the smooth skin of her back. I had never before touched anything as soft and perfect as the completely naked beauty of her body. Again she pulled away from me and pulled my shirt off as I planted urgent kisses over her collarbone, up her neck, to her awaiting lips.

When she wrapped her arms around my neck and began to grind her hips against mine, my desire became so utterly overpowering that I flipped her onto her back. I kicked off my trousers – the last remaining barrier that lay between us. As we writhed against one another, I could feel the wet heat between her legs. I pulled away, looking into her eyes, which were dark with desire. I felt a moment of fear as I looked questioningly at her, asking her whether she was sure she wanted to commit to this act of consummation. If I had seen any doubt in her eyes I would have stopped immediately, however difficult it may be, but I did not need to, for she lifted her hips up to mine, and in a moment of blind ecstasy, she allowed me to enter her. The pleasure of her enfolding me in a tight grasp of hot wetness was so awesome that I groaned into her neck and had to clutch the headboard in order to stop myself from ending this intoxicating encounter before it could even begin. Although she clutched my shoulder and a faint cry escaped her lips, Christine seemed to find my struggle to regain some semblance of composure utterly enthralling, because she flexed the muscles of her abdomen, causing me to bite her neck in a vain attempt to stifle the moan that , as it turned out, could not be stifled.

"Oh, Christine…" I whispered between my staggering breaths. For a moment I dared not move for fear of my bliss ending this magnificent moment. Again, her boldness overtook any doubts I harboured when she pushed me over onto my back and pressed her lips to mine, as she continued to grind her hips in harmony with our mutual, breathless pleasure.

I pulled myself upright to a sitting position, so that she was once again straddling me, and I buried my face in her hair. She continued to grind her body against mine, with a steady, passionate cadence. I cannot describe in words the pleasure, pain, and awesome love that eddied around my mind, body, and heart. I had felt sexual release before, naturally, but for it to be brought about by another person - by the one woman in this world I wanted more than any man has ever wanted a woman - was... well, so completely different from what I had ever felt before. I had dreamed of this moment so many times, with no reference to compare the sensation of being touched with amorous ardour. However, I can say with complete assurance that none of my fantasies could ever have come close to what was occurring to my body at that moment. One could simply not understand the pleasure of making love if one has never become one with the love of one's life.

Christine's hips continued to thrust with slow, agonising force, until this woman ceased being my sweet, loving angel. Suddenly, she was a goddess. Aphrodite would have been wickedly jealous.

As I gently pulled her hair back to allow mouth access to her small, pink nipples, her back arched, her body tensed, and she threw her head back. Her eyes closed and her mouth let out a strangled breath which, at the last moment became a cry of ecstasy. I felt the rhythmic tightening of her groin and abdomen, and the pressure proved too much to bear. There was nothing to spare my senses - a carnal assault flooded my entire body as my fingers dug into the nape of her neck, while my other hand gripped the hips that were no longer grinding into mine, but the taut muscles were a testament to the onslaught of pleasure which I knew was still spreading a fierce, sensuous heat from her groin to every inch of her body.

"Christine…" I managed to utter urgently with my mouth pressed against her throat, "Oh, Christine…" And then, a blinding, rapturous release of a lifetime of suppressed longing flooded my entire being with extraordinary sensation. With every spasm, I pulled her closer, and I gripped her tightly against me, while I breathed her name over and over.

My God... nothing could prepare me for that moment - the moment when our love exploded into the beautiful pleasure that we shared. For a long time we clung to one another, our breath slowly becoming less laboured. Christine's hand moved to caress my neck, as she lay her head on my shoulder, exhausted. I, too, was filled with a contented warmth, but I could not allow this moment to end just yet. I had touched her… I had felt her… but I had not _seen_ her. We were both sated, but I was never one for patient discovery. I was overcome with an overwhelming need to explore her body – to discover every secret, and to master the one skill on this earth that actually mattered.

While she rested her weary head on my shoulder, one arm wrapped around her waist, while the other gripped her leg, so that I could once again flip her over onto her back. She fell back onto the pillows, her eyes closed, her heavy breathing causing her breasts to heave steadily against my chest. I kissed her then, without the urgent passion that we had spent throughout our intense union. Instead, the kiss was unhurried, almost languid, as I took time to explore every crevice of her mouth. Very slowly, I lavished her with kisses that moved slowly down her warm, moist skin. My lips travelled down her neck, moving further down to meet the centre of her heaving chest. When I reached her navel, I pulled myself up on my hands, allowing me to view her - from the hips, still clutching my own, up her taut stomach, to her small, perfectly rounded breasts. I studied the naked body splayed before me with wondrous disbelief. Her dark hair, in stark contrast to the fair whiteness of her skin, had fallen over her breasts, partially obscuring them, and I gently pulled the soft locks aside to allow me a completely unadulterated view of her entire form. There was no shy modesty, no trying to hide from my wandering eyes. Her arms lay languorously on the pillow above her head, and while my eyes devoured her, she looked at me with a quizzical expression, as though she was watching me stare at her with mild amusement.

Her inviting eyes spurned me on, as I leaned down to kiss her stomach once again, and moved further down, down, down... until her sharp intake of breath and deep moans indicated I had found the place where her pleasure lay...

For the briefest of moments, I felt quite sorry for Nadir, as our cries of pleasure over the hours that followed could surely be heard in the country of his origin.


End file.
